Ok, I am ready to buy my own gear. I have been renting a 190 Sabre from the dz for a few months now. I want to buy a 150 Sabre2, the thing is I have never jumped a 150. I know I need to jump one before buying one, but I'm actually pretty nervous about it. I only weigh 125, but I am still afraid it's going to bring me in super fast...is there a big difference in speed between the 190 and 150?? If I buy a 190 instead, then sometime soon(when I get the courage) I will jump a 150 and wish I had bought that. I already know that the 150 turns faster, and I'm not a real "canopy happy" person, so I'm not worried about turning low, my main concern is landing. Although I land the 190 well, I bring the toggles down slowly but all in one motion....people tell me with the 150 I will need to do a 2-step flare. Anyhow, my question is, will there be a big difference in the two canopies?? Or am I being way too concerned?

There is a big difference in speed when it comes to turns. You will lose altitude much quicker, but honestly if you are worried about coming in to land and noticing a big difference it is not that much(in my opinion). Landing a 150 in 10 mile winds, is about the same speed as landing a 190 on a no wind day. You don't have to do a two-step flare. Just don't yank them down at the last second, or it will most likely pop you back up and then drop ya in...that sucks

I know I need to jump one before buying one, but I'm actually pretty nervous about it.

I think that's your answer right there. If you're already nervous about jumping the canopy before you ever get under it, what are you going to do if you have problems on that jump? Are you going to be able to control the canopy if the winds gust up, or if someone cuts you off on final, or if you have to land out into someone's backyard? Take all these things into consideration before you buy. I don't understand why you are skipping over jumping a 170. Also, read a couple of the threads in the Incidents forum about the broken legs that people have gotten from downsizing too quickly.

Why are you set on a Sabre2 150? There are plenty of other canopies out there in different sizes to look at. Lotus 170's are great canopies as are Safire2's.

There will be a step up in proformance any time you downsize. People that say there is no difference really are'nt as intune with their canopies as they think they are. I did'nt think there was a difference on a few canopies until I kept flipping them in the same day and noticved the difference in proformance.

What is your loading on the 190? On the 150? On a 170?

I've got a 136 Jedei as my main canopy now, but I kept my old 150 main so that I can grab something a tad slower and a tad larger when I want to do balloon jumps and other things that I don't want a lot of speed. I've considered getting a 170 to replace my 150 since that would be a better choice for everyday use.

if the loading on the 150 is close to or over 1:1 you'll need the 2 stage flare to have soft landings. If you try the single stage flare you'll probally break a bone or two.

Best advice I can give before any downsizing is ger canopy coaching on what you are flying now, try some CRW with it. Learn a lot about canopy flight. Then SLOWLY step down one size, play all over again. Put a few dozen jumps on each size canopy. High altitude hop an pops are a great way to learn your canopy.

add 20 or 25 for gear, and you are out the door wingloading at 1:1 (or just under) is not a drastic wingloading....unless you are uncomfortable with it and then it is bad idea! borrow a 170 and put a couple jumps on it before you go smaller.....

You might not notice a large difference between the 190 and the 170.....Speed is relative. A 150 is a dog to me, might be way to fast for you. You need to be comfertable under a canopy to really learn it. I know a girl who bought a small canopy and is afraid to jump it. Her confidence is shot, and she almost hates to jump. I know TONS of people who buy a small canopy thinking its cool, and never really learn to fly it...they are too busy saving their lives on each landing to play with it.

Get the 170 Demo, and try to jump it on a no/low wind day. It will then be the fastest it will ever be (unless you downwind it). If it feels fine to you, get a 150 Demo, and repeat this process.

You will know what canopy is the right size for you, just don't skip any sizes on the way down....Every canopy can teach you something. Most people really don't know the canopy they have before they get something else. The miss out on several valuble lessions. If you fly on the edge (or past) your comfort level, you will not learn anything other than how not to get hurt.

If you go and buy this 150 what size reserve are you going to have. Imagine you have a 150 reserve you have had a high speed malfunction and have cut away.. 1200' you are over trees and the only landing area is a clearing that you can just make but will have no time to face the wind.. so would you feel confident enough to downwind this canopy into a small landing area? check out Billvon's criteria for downsizing can you land your 190 downwind ,crosswind, uphill,downhill. no wind. if you cant DON'T DOWNSIZE pick up some used for your first set of gear you can generally sell it for close to what you paid.

The 150 will be fine. However the staged downsizing should not be skipped as you've read several times now.

The trouble with downsizing to a 150 in one shot is this: you have yet to jump a parachute that does does what you ask it too. the 190 turns when you pull down a toggle but it doesn't respond quickly and precisely. The 150 will do what ever you ask it to, whether-or-not...that's what you meant.

In other words, a sudden avoidance turn on the 190, may turn you away at a speed that's easy to deal with. That same turn on the 150 might be the same as politely asking the 150 to slam you into the ground. Make sense?

A 150 is sized MUCH better for someone who weighs 125. Borrow the 170 from PD (or someone else) so you get the feel of a parachute that responds to toggle input, the moment you input. ===================

Heavier people learn to fly a parachute earlier than lighter people. The student parachute actually responds a little. Lighter people get shafted. That's why downsizing slowly will be even MORE important to you even if you are conservative. Be safe

There is a girl at my dz with a 170, so I will try that first. Thanks for all the advice...I think I'm against the Triathlon because 2 guys at my home dz have them and they get bad line twists alot, causing both of them to have 2 cutaways in their last 200 jumps. Just my opinion...but Triathlon would be my last choice of canopy.....

There is a girl at my dz with a 170, so I will try that first. Thanks for all the advice...I think I'm against the Triathlon because 2 guys at my home dz have them and they get bad line twists alot, causing both of them to have 2 cutaways in their last 200 jumps. Just my opinion...but Triathlon would be my last choice of canopy.....

Buy what you want, but please don't judge the Tri because two guys at your DZ get line twists on them. If they are constantly having problems then either:

a) There is a problem with their body position at deployment time. b) Exceptionally sloppy packing is contributing to the twists c) The canopies are severely out of trim. d) all of the above.

The Tri's just aren't know for being a twisty canopy, as a matter of fact they're known for being extremely stable and easy to fly.

My only comment is that you owe it to yourself to also try out a Spectre - preferably a 190 first, so you can compare to the canopy you've been jumping til now. Then try a 170 along with the 170 Sabre so you can compare the two.

I did around a thousand jumps on a Sabre - then changed to a Spectre a couple years ago. The Spectre is a really nice canopy - does everything well - and for a skydiver with thousands of jumps in front of you - it does a few things exceptionally.

The openings are really sweet (I have psycho packed it from new). That should be important for you as your confidence in yourself should never be damaged by that once-in-a-hundred slammer of an opening. You just won't see that with a properly packed Spectre.

The landings are soft, predictible in all wind conditions, and forgiving if you mis-time your flare a bit. This also helps with your confidence.

In flight, it's still a zippy canopy. You can even do a conventional accuracy approach on this canopy using deep brakes and be able to have impressive pin-point accuracy.

Oh yeah, it also packs smnaller than a same sized 9 cell.

No, I don't work for PD - but I have owned and jumped many many canopies over the past 30 years. When I was an instructor a couple of lifetimes ago, I came to the realisation that a good canopy, with correct training, had a great deal to do with confidence and skill building.

I jumped my student time with PD Navigator 220. After graduation I started to jump with Merit 150, with no problems. It was not too fast, it was actually very fun canopy to play with on altitude. My load on 150 is ~1:1.1.

Then I tried also Sabre 170, and difference between 150 and 170 is huge. Don't want to jump anymore 170 cause it was so slow compared to that 150

It's up to you what you want to use. I like speed when I can control it, that's why I'm not nervous jumping on 150. I'm buying my own first gear and canopies what I look are 135 or 150.

If you are nervous, don't take too big steps. But it you thrust yourself, go for that 150. After few jumps you'll find that 170 beeing very slow boat

There is a girl at my dz with a 170, so I will try that first. Thanks for all the advice...I think I'm against the Triathlon because 2 guys at my home dz have them and they get bad line twists alot, causing both of them to have 2 cutaways in their last 200 jumps. Just my opinion...but Triathlon would be my last choice of canopy.....

Their is nothing at all wrong with a Triathlon. If they get line twists it is either packing, their opening body position or a REALLY old ass canopy out of trim.

Uuuhhh...that's a pretty broad statement. Read the incidents forum of the guy that broke himself good on a "lightly loaded" Falcon 175. ANY parachute can be dangerous.....it's whether or not it kills you that's the difference.

I think Ron was responding to the comment that if you go under 1:1 its dangerous.

Sure underloading a canopy prevents you from jumping in anything over a moderate breeze, but other then that I've been under canopies just last year at a .65 loading on 13k clear and pulls and never had an issue. Sure it was slow, but it seems like the word slow has a negitive conotation with some jumpers. Slow is the best thing in the world to most other people. I think that anything above about a .5 wingloading is fairly safe in terms of still being able to be controlled.